Neil Newhouse

{{Short description|American pollster}} {{Infobox person | name = Neil Newhouse | image =  | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date =  | birth_place = Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. | death_date =  | death_place = | alma_mater = Duke University; University of Virginia | political_party = Republican Party | other_names = | known_for = founding Public Opinion Strategies | occupation = Pollster }} '''Neil Newhouse''' is an American pollster. He is the co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies, a political survey and polling firm, and was the lead pollster for the unsuccessful presidential campaigns of both John McCain and Mitt Romney against Barack Obama.

== Early life and education == Newhouse grew up in Shawnee Mission, Kansas.<ref name="NYT Harwood" /> He graduated from Duke University in 1974<ref name="Duke Harwood" /> and attended graduate school at the University of Virginia.<ref name="SHRM" />

== Career == In 1991 he founded the polling company Public Opinion Strategies with Bill McInturff and Glen Bolger, one of the biggest polling firms in Republican politics.<ref name="NYT Harwood" /> He was previously executive vice president at the Wirthlin Group.<ref name="Johnson 2016" />

In 1993, Newhouse, who specializes in health-care analysis, worked on creating the Harry and Louise adverts funded by the Health Insurance Association of America to attack President Bill Clinton's health care plan.<ref name="Johnson 2016" /> He was later a senior advisor to Bob Dole's campaign in the 1996 Republican primaries ahead of Clinton's 1996 election, but was fired after Dole lost New Hampshire to Pat Buchanan, though Newhouses's polling had in that instance been accurate.{{sfn|Johnson|2016|p=401}}

He was lead pollster for John McCain's unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign.<ref name="Johnson 2016" />

In 2012, he was again the lead pollster for a Republican Party presidential nominee, this time Mitt Romney, whose presidential campaign was, like McCain's, against Barack Obama.<ref name="Johnson 2016" /> His polls predicted that Romney would win the election, which proved not to be the case. Newhouse put those errors down, in part, to faulty demographic models of likely turnout, an over-emphasis on measures of voter enthusiasm, and relying on random digit dialing rather than lists of registered voters.<ref name="NYT Harwood" />

Responding to criticism of the factual accuracy of a series of attack ads on welfare policy during the campaign,<ref name="HuffPo Stein" /> Newhouse commented to reporters that "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers", at a panel organised by NBC News at the Republican National Convention.<ref name="Der Spiegel" /> The comments drew direct criticism from Obama.<ref name="HuffPo Jeltson" /> In a 2016 interview with the ''Duke Political Review'' he said "What I meant by that was that every ad we did in the Romney campaign was fact-checked internally ... what I meant was that I wasn't going to let those independent newspaper guys dictate how we’re going to run the strategy of our campaign".<ref name="Duke interview" /> A one-letter typo of his was the subject of several articles when he spelled 'Reagan', 'Regan' in one slide of a PowerPoint presentation. The error came the week after the Romney campaign's "With Mitt" iPhone app had spelled "America" as "Amercia".<ref name="HuffPo typo" /><ref name="Telegraph typo" /><ref name="Star typo" />

For the 2014 Senate elections, he was an adviser to the Republican campaigns in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan and West Virginia.<ref name="NYT Harwood" />

== Awards == The American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) has named Newhouse their Pollster of the Year three times, together or jointly. In 2003, the award went to Public Opinion Strategies for its work in the 2002 elections.<ref name="Duke Harwood" /><ref name="AAPC 2003" /> In 2010, he and Glen Bolger split the award, as the Pollster Team of the Year. Newhouse's win was for his work on Scott Brown's successful run for senator in a special election in Massachusetts.<ref name="Johnson 2016" /><ref name="AAPC 2010" /> In 2016 he won for his work on the campaign against the legalization of cannabis in Ohio.<ref name="AAPC 2016" />

== Personal life == Newhouse has a wife, Mary, and two children, with whom he lives in Alexandria, Virginia.<ref name="NYT Harwood" /><ref name="SHRM" />

==References== <references>

<ref name="AAPC 2003">{{cite web|title=2003 Award Winners|url=http://theaapc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2003-Award-Winners.pdf|website=theaapc.com|publisher=American Association of Political Consultants|access-date=17 January 2018}}</ref> <ref name="AAPC 2010">{{cite web|title=2010 Pollie Awards|url=http://theaapc.org/awards/past-winners/pollie-award-winners-2010/|website=theaapc.org|publisher=American Association of Political Consultants|access-date=17 January 2018}}</ref> <ref name="AAPC 2016">{{cite web|title=2016 Campaign Excellence Winners|url=https://theaapc.org/awards/2016-campaign-excellence-winners/|website=theaapc.org|publisher=American Association of Political Consultants|access-date=17 January 2018}}</ref> <ref name="Der Spiegel">{{cite news|last1=Schmitz|first1=Gregor Peter|title=US Candidates Unabashed in Stretching the Truth|url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-campaign-of-lies-us-candidates-unabashed-in-truth-stretching-a-853925.html|work=Der Spiegel|access-date=17 January 2018|date=4 September 2012}}</ref> <ref name="Duke Harwood">{{cite news|last1=Harwood|first1=John|title=Predicting the Political Landscape|url=http://dukemagazine.duke.edu/article/predicting-the-political-landscape|access-date=17 January 2018|work=Duke Magazine|publisher=Duke University|date=31 January 2007}}</ref> <ref name="Duke interview">{{cite news|last1=Adair|first1=Annie|title=An Interview with Neil Newhouse|url=http://dukepoliticalreview.org/an-interview-with-neil-newhouse/|access-date=17 January 2018|work=Duke Political Review|date=6 April 2016}}</ref> <ref name="HuffPo Jeltson">{{cite news|last1=Jeltsen|first1=Melissa|title=Obama Goes After Neil Newhouse, Mitt Romney Pollster, Over Controversial Comment|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/obama-neil-newhouse_n_1841647|work=The Huffington Post|access-date=16 January 2018|date=30 August 2012}}</ref> <ref name="HuffPo Stein">{{cite news|last1=Stein|first1=Sam|title=Mitt Romney Campaign: We Will Not 'Be Dictated By Fact-Checkers'|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/mitt-romney-_n_1836139|access-date=17 January 2018|work=The Huffington Post|date=28 August 2012}}</ref> <ref name="HuffPo typo">{{cite news|title=Public Opinion Strategies, Mitt Romney Pollster, Misspells Ronald Reagan|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/mitt-romney-campaign-misspells-reagan-regan_n_1575727.html|access-date=17 January 2018|work=The Huffington Post|date=6 June 2012}}</ref> <ref name="Johnson 2016">{{cite book|last=Johnson|first=Dennis W. |title=Democracy for Hire: A History of American Political Consulting|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x_K4DQAAQBAJ&pg=PT198|date=18 October 2016|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-027271-5|page=198}}</ref> <ref name="NYT Harwood">{{cite news|last1=Harwood|first1=John|title=Republican Pollster Takes Lessons Learned in 2012 to Senate Races|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/politics/midterm-elections-neil-newhouse-republicans-senate-polls.html|access-date=17 January 2018|work=The New York Times|date=17 October 2014}}</ref> <ref name="SHRM">{{cite web|title=Neil Newhouse|url=http://sessionplanner.shrm.org/presenter/neil-newhouse|website=www.shrm.org|publisher=Society for Human Resource Management|access-date=16 January 2018}}</ref> <ref name="Star typo">{{cite news|last1=Goodman|first1=Lee-Anne|title=Ronald Regan or Reagan? Mitt Romney campaign misspells former president's name|url=https://www.thestar.com/news/world/uselection/2012/06/06/ronald_regan_or_reagan_mitt_romney_campaign_misspells_former_presidents_name.html|work=The Toronto Star|access-date=17 January 2018|date=6 June 2012}}</ref> <ref name="Telegraph typo">{{cite news|title=Mitt Romney spells Ronald Reagan's name as Regan|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/mitt-romney/9316258/Mitt-Romney-spells-Ronald-Reagans-name-as-Regan.html|access-date=17 January 2018|work=The Daily Telegraph|date=7 June 2012}}</ref>

</references>

== External links == * [http://pos.org/about-us/leadership/neil-newhouse-partner/ Profile] on the Public Opinion Strategies [http://pos.org/ official website] * {{C-SPAN|700}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Newhouse, Neil}} Category:American political consultants Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:Pollsters Category:Duke University alumni Category:American company founders